Last Thursday, America’s ambassador to Turkey was saying that sought “de-escalation and dialogue(https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/syrian-israeli-officials-discuss-de-escalation-paris-meeting-us-envoy-says-2025-07-24/)” in Syria’s ongoing conflict. On Friday, US special forces struck(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/25/us/politics/us-raid-syria-isis.html) deep into Syria, near Aleppo, killing a senior ISIS leader. This vivid contrast exemplifies just how complicated Syria’s future is, and how high the regional and global stakes are. And, since Israel sees its northern border with Lebanon and Syria as a continuous frontier requiring integrated defenses, threats in Lebanon are hardly separate from threats in Syria or Iran’s broader malevolent role across the Middle East.
The Assad dictatorship’s collapse in December 24, combined with earlier heavy losses suffered by Hezbollah and Hamas, and underlined by the Israeli-US attacks on Iran’s nuclear-weapons and ballistic-missile programs, have fundamentally changed what the Soviets once called “the correlation of forces” in the region. The dramatic reversals of fortune for Iran and its allies after the striking failure of their anti-Israel “ring of fire” strategy mean that serious threats no longer emanate from Tehran alone.
Today’s problems stem from the 1919 Treaty of Versailles and its diplomatic progeny carving up the Ottoman Empire. Ottoman governance structures were hardly ideal, but France and the United Kingdom were pursuing their own interests by converting Arab lands south of the newly created Turkey into League of Nations mandates. France further divided its mandate, Syria, into separate states: Greater Lebanon, Jabal al-Druze, Aleppo, Damascus and the Alawite state. After Assad’s fall, no one any longer expects Syria to annex Lebanon, but the harder question is how to manage relations between the Alawites, Druze, and various Christians with the new HTS government. Moreover, in Lebanon, the role of Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy, remains very much undecided, certainly in Tehran’s view.
While Iran is no longer a significant actor in Syria, Recep Erdogan’s Turkey has become increasingly assertive since the Arab Spring erupted and seriously threatened the Assad regime. During the post-Arab Spring civil war in Syria, Erdogan supported several rebel groups, hoping to install a Moslem Brotherhood regime in Damascus. He wanted a Syrian leader Ankara could control, not one under Tehran’s direction.
While Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (“HTS”), formerly known as the Nusrah Front, an offshoot of al Qaeda, was not Erdogan’s first choice, it was better than nothing. He and Abu Mohammad al-Jolani seized their chance in late 2024, ousting Assad remarkably quickly. The moment was opportune since Russia and Iran, essential earlier in protecting Assad against the Arab Spring, were preoccupied, respectively, in the Ukraine and Middle East wars. HTS could not have overthrown Assad’s regime without Turkish support. But, while reducing Russia’s influence and effectively eliminating Iran’s entirely is all to the good, there is no agreement about what an HTS regime portends. Will it do Erdogan’s bidding? Will it return entirely to its terrorist roots? We simply do not know. Watching foreign terrorist fighters allied with HTS transition into Syria’s army(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/08/world/middleeast/syria-foreign-fighters.html) is not necessarily comforting. One point is certain: the last thing anyone needs is an Ottoman Empire 2.0, much less turning Syria into “Afghanistan on the Mediterranean.”
Erdogan’s recent truce with Turkey’s Kurdish rebels seems positive, but his motive may be primarily a desperate need for domestic support against increasingly united opposition from ethnic Turkish voters(https://www.fdd.org/analysis/op_eds/2025/03/26/turkeys-kurdish-peace-talks-a-genuine-effort-or-erdogans-power-play/). Kurds in northeastern Syria, especially Mazloum Abdi’s Syrian Democratic Forces, have been uneasily negotiating with the HTS regime. Erdogan’s hostility toward the SDF, and the presence of US miliary personnel east of the Euphrates River, has undeniably kept Turkey’s miliary from entering and seizing Syria’s northeast.
Accordingly, before overly obsessing on the conflict in southern Syria, in which Israel has intervened to protect Druze and Christian populations, it is critical first to know more about the HTS regime in Damascus. As I earlier explained in these pages, the now-renamed Ahmed al Sharaa and his HTS government(https://www.boltonpac.com/2025/05/what-is-required-of-sharia-to-obtain-full-american-recognition) have many tests to pass. These include fully opening the Assad regime’s files on foreign hostages and its weapons-of-mass-destruction programs. Additionally, revealing all of Assad’s dealings with Hezbollah and Iran would provide interesting reading.
Instead, while seeking information about Assad’s chemical- and biological-weapons efforts(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/world/europe/syria-sanctions-trump.html) and missing American citizens(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/world/middleeast/israel-syria-border-us-barrack.html), the White House seems more interested in pursuing Turkish and HTS priorities rather than US interests(https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/30/us/politics/trump-syria-sanctions.html). Ambassador Thomas Barrack, for example, criticized Israel for striking Syria’s military headquarters in Damascus(https://www.timesofisrael.com/top-netanyahu-adviser-expected-to-meet-syrian-foreign-minister-in-paris/). Were Barrack’s comments his own, or were they were authorized by Washington, which might be expected when criticizing a US ally?
Moreover, Barrack is publicly making excuses for al-Sharaa’s reluctance to open full diplomatic relations with Israel. It is not generally a US ambassador’s job to justify another country’s actions; indeed, this is the essence of “clientitis,” an institutional disease at the State Department, often referred to more disparagingly as “going native.” Ambassador Barrack should be warned about the symptoms he is displaying. He and the White House still have much to learn.
This article was first published in the Independent Arabia on July 29, 2025. Click here to read the original article.